What if search engines or ISPs decide to ‘disappear’ content they don’t like? When there are plenty of middlemen, it’s not really an issue. But when there’s lock-in, it’s too late to have this discussion.

We make a deal with the natural monopolies in our lives. They get the privilege and the profit of being the only one, but in exchange, they accept the responsibility of being open middlemen, of being neutral, of not blacking out those that don’t pay up or that don’t agree.

If ConEd or your local power utility said, “sorry, our electricity can’t be used on Maytag appliances because they didn’t pay a slotting fee,” you’d be appropriately incensed. But when it happens to ideas, I fear the cost is even greater.

We live in the connection economy, a world based on ideas. When a few corporate titans can control the flow of those ideas and the essence of that connection, we’ve given up far too much.